Health and Exercise Advice Thread

[JohnD]

We see alot of people making threads concerning essentially the same issues: losing weight and gaining muscle. So here I am making a general health and exercise advice thread, where everybody can contribute, and I can store the advices and tips in this thread to help people looking for help this these areas. Also if you think some websites are helpful, please feel free adding them here.


Diet:
-starvation diet never works in the long run. though in the short run, starvation can lead to quick weight lost. But after the diet, because the body had been starved for so long, it will try to consume even more than usual amount of food to recover, thus leading to significant weight gain in short period of time.

-Know what you are eating: knowing how healthy the food you are eating is a very important step in weight lost. I have met many people who just cant seem to lose their weight. when I ask them what they are eating, they always say salad. but in reality, they are eating unhealthy salads such as Caesar salad with cheese or salad with large amount of ranch sauce. There are more calories in a plate of Caesar salad than a big mac

-Read the labels: One handy way of knowing what you are eating is reading the labels. this is something that you must train yourself into doing. read the labels on the cover of the food you buy. you can find out many important informations this way, like how much calories are in the food, etc.

-Know the Serving size: this is something most people tend to ignore. Serving size tells you what the actual calorie count is in the food you are eating. So if the serving size of a food is 6, and the calorie count on the label says 200; then you need to time 200 by 6 to find out the true calorie. You can avoid alot of unhealthy food this way. For example: once I almost bought a steak that says it has 300 calorie, but its serving size is 10. which means that there were actually 3000 calories in there.


Weight Lost:
-Cardiovascular exercises (short for Cardio) are the keys to weight lost. There are no magic pills for weight lost. Even all the expensive weight lost pills that cost over 100 dollars requires you to doing a lot of cardio exercises. so save the money.

-What are Cardio exercises: they are exercises that requires large amount of oxygen consumption from the body. Examples of cardio exercises are Running, Cycling, kick boxing and swimming.

-find a exercise that suits you: you need to find an exercise that you actually enjoy to continue the healthy exercise habit.

-You cant isolate an area of the body to burn fat: This is something that many infomercials try to mislead the consumers. (by this I mean ab rollers, and all those ab machines you see on tv). Your body doesnt work this way.

-beginning with a slow and suitable speed for you: many people rush into exercise, for example they try to run 6 miles on their first day of exercise. and they end up tired and in pain, and they quit running after that first time. start up slow and steady. try to exercise at a pace that is within your limit, and build up from there.

-HIIT.(high intensity interval training) you run in sperts, one minute of jogging then 30-45 seconds of sprinting, and you continue doing this in intervals, but no more than 20 minutes, the best part about this exercise is that you are constantly changing your heart rate, tricking your body into burning more calories. (contributed by simply complicated, thanks)

-Know the concept of exercise SMART:
S- specific
M- Measurable
A- Attainable
R- Realistic
T- Time based
for more specific information look for luiks8's post, it is the 7th post of this thread
(contributed by luiks8, thanks)


Muscle Building: I will leave most of these to Ghost.
-fewer reps build muscles: at lot of beginners, try to crunch out of dozens of repetitions of an exercise in hope of building up muscles faster. This is actually very counter productive. more repetitions actually stretches out of the muscles making them longer instead of larger. Try to find a weight that allows you to do around 6- 10 repetitions instead.

-watch your form: perfect form is very important. it allows you to actually work the the muscles you are trying to build up. take the simple exercise the bicep crunch as an example: I have seen alot of guys swinging their arms and arching their backs while trying to to do the crunch. they are not actually working their biceps that hard, because the momentum of the swing is actually what brought the weight up, not pulling from the biceps

-Allow your muscles to rest: when you exercise you are actually tearing the muscle, and when you rest your body will repair these tears by reinforce them and making them thicker. as a result your muscles become stronger and larger. allow yourself at least 1 days rest between workouts, a week if you work them intensively

Helpful Websites:
I dunno any


I will add more, when I can remember more tips. At the mean time, thanks for reading, to the experts and exercise nuts feel free to contribute more; and to those who are on the road to weight lost, hope I at least helped a little, and good luck.

[simply complicated]

The best way to lose weight and tone up is cardio, but there are more effecitive types of cardio than others, the best of the best is called HIIT.(high intensity interval training) you run in sperts, one minute of jogging then 30-45 seconds of sprinting, and you continue doing this in intervals, but no more than 20 minutes, the best part about this exercise is that you are constantly changing your heart rate, tricking your body into burning more calories.
The real secret behind this cardio workout that makes it more affective than any other, is your metabolic rate goes through the roof, lasting 24 and sometimes 36 hours after you've completed the workout, depending on the intensity.

[lizer]

the biggest issue ive noticed is PORTION SIZING.
just the other day i was pouring some bran cereal (90 calories per 3/4 cup)... the problem is that once you fill a normal size bowl (not large by any means).. it ends up pouring nearly TWO cups of cereal. when i pour 3/4 cup, it fills up less than half the bowl!

just something to really start honing in on.


ive always wished that workout videos (i have many interval training videos) would show you the amount of average calories burned. it would really feel better knowing if i worked off a teeny muffin, or an entire meal.

[renaissancewoman101]

How quickly do most people lose weight, and is walking a good way to lose weight or do you have to do more "cardio"-type exercises? I have asthma issues and doing the more strenuous exercises can leave me out of breath and short of breath.

[lizer]

Originally Posted by renaissancewoman101

How quickly do most people lose weight, and is walking a good way to lose weight or do you have to do more "cardio"-type exercises? I have asthma issues and doing the more strenuous exercises can leave me out of breath and short of breath.

check out the walk away the pounds workouts by leslie sansone. they're a bit different than just walking down the street. they will utilize your upper body as well. walking can cause weight loss indeed. so long as you arent eating it all back in the same day. my mom does those tapes and lost nearly 20 pounds in half a year.

just for the record the safe weight loss is when you lose 1-2 lbs per week. the best chance you have at keeping it off is slow weight loss.
otherwise i've easily lost 5lbs in one week before. somehow it magically krept up by the end of the next week. just proves the theory.

[renaissancewoman101]

I would love to lose about twenty pounds in the next month or so.

[kuiks8]

Originally Posted by renaissancewoman101

I would love to lose about twenty pounds in the next month or so.

20lbs in 1 month is not very realistic. If you are trying to lose weight in any healthy way you should aim to lose 1-2 lbs a week at the most. Anything else is not very realistic and the best way to succeed with your goals is to make the attainable.
There is an acronym for goal setting which is applicable to weight loss:


S - Specific:
You must state your goal as specifically as possible.
Try to put as much decision work into your goal now.
Set the goal “lose 20 pounds” instead of “lose weight”.
But you can do even better. Try “Lose 20 pounds by increasing my exercise to 4 times a week and reducing sugar and portion size”.
Have your goal be like an instruction telling you what to do.
M - Measurable:
You need to have a way to measure progress.
Progress will feel good and measuring will keep you from cheating. The goal “lose 20 pounds” can be measured by a scale.
Produce evidence for your progress. If your goal is to “reduce stress” create a stress measure for yourself like the number of times you get upset everyday.
Keep a log and record each stressful reaction.
A - Attainable:
Your goal should be meaningful to you. It should be set by you, not someone else.
The goal should be inspiring enough that it motivates you to success. If you are not determined to meet your goal, obstacles will be very difficult to overcome. \
If your doctor says, “lose weight” and your wife says, “lose weight” but you are not inspired by this, find another goal that also improves your health while you try to find a way to become inspired about weight loss.
R - Realistic:
Goals should be ambitious, but not impossible.
Do not set yourself up for failure.
Choose a goal that you are confident you can reach, but that will stretch yourself also.
Break large goals into smaller goals.
Create a plan to do all the steps you need.
T – Time Based :
When will you finish your goal?
You need to choose a time, the sooner the better.
Saying “I will lose 20 pounds in 3 months” is good, but saying “I will lose an average of 2 pounds every week for 10 weeks” is better.

I would try this!

[JohnD]

thanks Simply Complicated and Luiks, your informations are very helpful =)